


Summer of Love

by theinksplotch



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Lesbian Maxine "Max" Mayfield, M/M, Maxine "Max" Mayfield is a Good Friend, Period-Typical Homophobia, Stranger Things 3 Spoilers, Will Byers is so awkward god bless him, Will and El and Max become best bros, theyre like 16
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-06-25 04:23:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19738237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinksplotch/pseuds/theinksplotch
Summary: Max, El, and Will get the summer of love they deserve.





	1. Blister in the Sun

Max Mayfield can think of a lot of things she likes better than boys.

The feel of the crisp, fall air on her skin when September hits, for instance. When the leaves fall from the trees and the air smells like firewood and damp earth. They didn’t get much crisp Autumn breezes in California, she remembers. In California, the leaves clung to the trees ‘til late December and Halloween night was always humid.

She likes skateboarding, likes that it almost feels like flying when she closes her eyes and lets the wind hit her face. She likes that she has scrapes and bruises to show off, purple and black and bloody and _real_. They peak out from the holes in the knees of her jeans and she’s _proud_ of them.

She likes the feel of a cigarette tucked in between her fingers and the little blippy noises that Pac-Man makes and the way the ocean looks on a stormy day. She likes cranking up the dial on the old, shifty radio in the kitchen when nobody else is home and letting Blondie’s voice settle in the air like a different kind of oxygen. She likes the color blue and the smell of rain and the way her hair looks in a ponytail.

Max also likes…something else better than boys. But she pretends she doesn’t.

Max is good at pretending.

She talks like she knows what she’s saying, argues even though she’s knows she’s wrong. She kisses Lucas’ lips like she doesn’t feel totally hollow on the inside whenever he tells her _I love you_ and her tongue weighs ten thousand pounds in her mouth.

She thinks she _does_ love Lucas—he’s her best friend. They watch scary movies together and make secret handshakes when they’re bored. 

But not like how he _wants_ her to. Not like how she _wishes_ she did.

She thinks sometimes, that maybe she’s pretending out of spite. Because high school girls are mean and high school girls will tear you apart if you let them. Because Greta Kerns from gym wrote _dyke_ on her locker and Max will kiss a thousand stupid boys before she admits that high school girls and their snap judgements are _right_ sometimes. 

And Max _hates_ it, hates it like she hates the way her name sounds out of her mother’s mouth. _Maxine_ , she always says with a sigh, like the words are as much of a burden on her tongue as her daughter is on her stupid nuclear family. Like Billy isn’t practically a serial killer. Like she isn’t hiding hazy, purple bruises under those fancy blouses she buys from JCPenney, and _not_ the kind to be proud of. 

Max stays away from her house on most days—away from asshole step-brothers and disappointed mothers and empty, beige walls that seem to close in on her when she stares at them for too long. Most days she’s sneaking into movies with the rest of the Party or hunched over the Arcade’s machines until her fingers ache and her legs go numb from standing for too long.

Some days she can’t help being stuck at home, though.

Max’s skateboard clatters loudly as she lands another clumsy kick flip, trying not to wince when her legs start to ache like hell. She _hates_ days like this—boring days where there isn’t shit to do but skate around the block and squint up at the blistering sun. She hasn’t got enough quarters saved up to have any _real_ fun at the arcade and the only person who’d come to the door all day was some lady selling Bibles.

Max groans loudly as she screws up yet _another_ kick flip that sends her board rocketing down the street at full speed. She watches it go for a second, eyes going wide when it slows to a stop at a worn pair of untied boots. 

Boots that just so happen to be attached to Mike Wheeler’s girlfriend. 

Max brushes a strand of sweaty hair out of her face, watches Eleven kick the skateboard up into her hand without so much as a glance towards it. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, really. She just—stares. Max returns her gaze, only feeling a tiny bit unsettled by it. 

See, Eleven doesn’t really _like_ her all that much.

They got off to a rocky start—and by rocky, Max means that the girl used her _mind_ to toss her off of a skateboard like a rag doll because of some _misunderstanding_. Even _after_ Max swore up and down that she wasn’t out to steal El’s boyfriend—she might’ve gone a little too far with the _human version of Gumby_ comment, considering the fact that Mike refused to talk to her for a week after the whole thing—she and El had never bothered to get to know each other outside of the Party. They aren’t really _friends_ , per say. They’re just two people that happen to _share_ friends, and it usually isn’t awkward until it _is_. Until they’re stuck sitting next to each other at the movies and Max’s fingers accidentally brush El’s when she reaches to grab popcorn. Until they’re forced into walking to school together in awkward silence every morning because they’re houses are on the same side of town and there’s only _one damn road_. Until they disagree on something stupid like the best gummy bear flavor and end up glaring daggers at each other while the boys look between them nervously, like they’re watching a particularly nerve-wracking nature show and they’re not sure whether the alligator or the lion will win this round. 

_Until now_ , Max thinks, because El is _here_. Standing on _Max’s_ street. Holding _Max’s_ gaze like it weighs a hundred pounds.

Max doesn’t say anything when El starts to walk towards her, short curly hair gone frizzy in the summer heat. She’s wearing some ratty old flannel that’s probably Hopper’s or maybe even Mike’s, and Max wonders if she dresses like this because she likes it or because Hopper doesn’t know how to shop for girls.

Max scoffs. _Boys_.

El doesn’t stop until they’re inches apart, huffing a strand of mousy, brown hair out of her face. Max can see the little caramel colored freckles on the apples of her cheeks, smell the cotton candy chapstick on her lips. She could say it‘s almost dizzying, but she isn’t going to.

“Hi,” El softly, a little awkwardly. She thrusts the skateboard towards Max, willing her to grab it. Max does, their fingers brushing for a half a second before El is pulling away.

Huh.

“Hi?”

And it’s _weird_ , because Eleven has always been somebody _untouchable_ —somebody Max could never compare to. The girl who could move things with her mind, the savior of Hawkins—if this were a comic book, she’d be the main character. And Max is...well Max is the girl that picks fights with her for no apparent reason and storms out of the Wheeler’s basement when she realizes she’s being an asshole. She doesn’t have a place in El’s story.

She keeps telling herself she’s okay with that.

Who wants to be friends with El anyways?

“Um, is there something you need?” Max lets out finally, when the silence becomes too much. She dumps her board on the ground next to her and pulls a box of bandaids out the pocket of her shorts, needing to do something with her hands because _El is just staring at her_. With fumbling fingers, Max digs for the stray cigarette that she’d nagged from Billy and stowed away with the colorful bandages inside. She watches El’s face glow with interest as she lights it with her step-dad’s old zippo and takes a slow drag, making a show of it. The nicotine burns her throat and warms her chest, and Max feels her body sag a little when she exhales.

It’s calming, the taste of nicotine. It settles on her tongue, mellowing the shaking in her nerves that she’d been stuck with since last October. 

Since the monster.

“Girl time,” El says simply, wide eyes still glued to the cigarette between Max’s teeth. “I wanna talk.”

Max scoffs around the cig and she feels smoke steam out of her nose, warm and stinging. She watches it settle in the air between them for a second, narrowing her eyes at the girl stood before her.

“Talk about _what_ , exactly?” She asks, crossing her arms and hating that she actually has to _look up_ to meet El’s gaze. She’s only a little taller than Max, but she’s lanky, Max realizes—all gangly legs and slender hips and regal features. And she’s still _staring_. It makes Max want to pick another stupid fight. 

“What, did Lucas like, pay you to play nice with me for the afternoon or something? I _know_ you don’t like me, Eleven.” It comes out more hurt than she means it to, and Max’s fingers are fidgeting again. Tugging at belt loops. Brushing stray hair out of her face. Pulling the stupid cigarette out of her mouth and putting it out on the sole of her sneaker. _Jesus_.

El doesn’t say anything for a while, and Max thinks it’s because she’s studying her, calculating brown eyes and creased brow and all. Max tries not to squirm beneath her gaze, tries to remember that she’s good at pretending and not a total doofus. 

Finally, El turns her back on Max, like she’s said her piece, and Max is _confused_.

“I rented _Goonies_ ,” Eleven says over her shoulder, a silent invitation. “Also I have ice cream.”

“What the _hell_ ,” Max mutters as she watches the girl walk away, short, frizzy hair bouncing and swaying with every step. She wants to talk now? After six months? Max scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. As _if_ , she’d want to hang out with El anyways. It’s not like she’s curious or anything. It’s not like El is all that _interesting_ , either, she thinks.

Right?

Eleven is halfway down her block before Max gives in and decides to follow her, stamping her foot on the ground with a frustrated groan. “ _Shit_ ,” Max mumbles, scooping up her skateboard with a heavy sigh. She doesn’t even fucking _like_ the stupid Goonies.

“Hey! Eleven!” She says it before she can stop herself. 

The lanky girl whirls around to face her, squinting against the midday sunlight.

 _What the hell_ , Max thinks. It wasn’t like she wanted to be home, anyways.

“What flavor of ice cream is it?”

El grins at that, and Max is dizzy again. “Chunky Monkey,” she says, almost too soft for Max to hear. 

Max runs to catch up with her, skin warm under the sun, and the taste of smoke heavy on her tongue. Everything is warm now, because Maxine Mayfield is pretty sure she’s about to make a new friend. 


	2. Girls With Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s more to life than stupid boys, you know.

“I don’t think I‘m in love with Mike anymore.”

They haven’t said a word to each other since entering El’s room—since Eleven had pushed the tape into the VCR and asked Max if she’d like the lights off or on—to which Max replied _whatever_ with a shrug and a mouth full of ice cream.

Eleven watches the spoon in Max’s freckled hand hover in mid air, dripping with sugary sweet ice cream that threatens to spill over on the bedsheets. Watches the way sky-blue eyes shift from the television screen to look at her, confused at the sudden revelation.

“ _Huh_?”

El feels her hands start to shake so she clasps them together. She isn’t _sure_ if she can trust Max. Max is _loud_. She smokes cigarettes and laughs like everything is the funniest thing she’s ever heard. El doesn’t really _know_ how to get along with her—she doesn’t think Max Mayfield likes her very much, though she has every right not to. El sometimes watches the way Max grins at Dustin or Lucas and thinks maybe the two of them could have been friends if she hadn’t been so jealous when they first met. Because _Max_ is different than Mike, and sometimes Mike feels like the only person she can trust. 

Maybe not so much anymore, though.

Because things feel different now. When Mike looks at her his eyes are somewhere far away and her skin feels scrubbed raw and red when they’re kissing, when Mike’s hand moves to graze her thigh or cup her face. She feels _wrong_ when she’s kissing Mike, like something inside her has been knocked out of place. 

She thinks Max might know how to help her fall back in love. She wears bubblegum flavored lip gloss and her hair burns and flickers in the sun like fire. _She’s_ got things figured out.

Or at least El thinks she does.

Max sets her spoon back into the bowl with a soft clink, brushing hair behind her ear before meeting El’s gaze. El watches it fall back into place, bright even in the darkness of her room. Drags her eyes down angry, red curls like a moth drawn to a flame.

Max is _pretty_ , El thinks suddenly, almost surprised at the observation. She looks like the women in the old films that show on television late at night sometimes—curved hips and full lips and freckled skin (Freckles are angels’ kisses—El thinks she read that in a book once). Her face is heart shaped and sort of sweet-looking, though her ears stick out a little more than they probably should and she scowls more than she smiles. It all makes Eleven a little envious, makes her want to reach out and press her fingers to the sliver of freckled skin that’s showing from where Max’s shirt is riding up, just to see if it’s as soft as it looks. 

They’re curled up on her bed, the two of them—one of Max’s bruised knees poking awkwardly up into her side, although Eleven can’t bring herself to move away from it. She’s got _Goonies_ cued up on Hop’s old VCR, the glow from the television screen casts a ghostly film over her dark room like something out of a horror film.

El’s seen the movie a hundred thousand times, she can probably recite it off the top of her head. But she’s not really paying attention.

Well, she sort of is. Because she thinks Mikey is _sort of_ dreamy.

 _Next time we see the sky, it’ll be over some other town_ , the boy is saying. 

“Okay,” Max says slowly, softly. She’s chewing on her nail, absentmindedly chipping away at the polish. Her nails are more than one color, chipping shades of greens and blues and yellows painted haphazardly and messily on bitten up canvases. Like she couldn’t decide which one to go with so she used them all. El thinks it’s the coolest thing she’s ever seen. “Um, what happened?”

“ _Nothing_ happened,” Eleven says with a frown. “I just stopped loving him.”

Max hums, wriggling around so that she’s on her back now. She looks up at the little clusters of glow-in-the dark stars on El’s ceiling, the faintest constellations she’s ever seen. El’s room is very cute, she decides. It’s a lot different than her own. The walls are purple beneath posters of _New Kids on The Block_ and _Wham!_ and shelves are neat and organized. But different isn’t always bad. It’s just…different. She lets her head lull over to the side so she’s looking up at El. 

“Does that make me a bad person?” El asks, worried. 

She’s close enough for Max to see the light from the television reflected in her eyes, glowing like the stars on the ceiling. She’s _weird_ , Max finds herself thinking. She’s weird because she hasn’t talked to Max in six months and now she’s telling her this big, out of fucking nowhere _Thing_ and _she’s so naive_ and Max has never felt such a fierce urge to protect someone in her life. It burns like fire in her gut, like the cigarette smoke that her lungs ache for. 

“You’re _not_ a bad person for getting over a boy, El.”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that El is still adjusting to _normal_ life. She can kill monsters and move things with her fucking _mind_ , but she doesn’t understand movie references or _relationships_ , apparently. It’s so _weird_. She’s like an alien or something.

“You’re not like, obligated to drool over Mike just because he like, saved you,” Max tells her. “You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Eleven says uncertainty, which definitely means no. Max rolls her eyes.

“ _Eleven_ ,” she scoffs even though she knows she’s kind of smiling. “It’s _okay_ not to know things, alright?” 

El nods slowly, eyes blinking.

“Alright,” Max says. “What I’m _saying_ is, you don’t _need_ to have a boyfriend.” 

_This is our time, it’s our time down here_ , somebody on television says. Max’s fingers feel sticky from ice cream, she wipes them on her shirt.

“And you don’t need to force yourself to fall in love with Mike just because he’s nice to you or whatever, _ugh_.” She rolls her eyes again. 

“I don’t need to have…a boyfriend,” El parrots back slowly.

” _Duh_ ,” Max sits up and crosses her legs. El follows suit, and it occurs to Max that nobody ever _taught_ El any of this. Duh, she’s surrounded by _men_. And men are idiots by like, nature.

“So...I don’t have to fall back in love with him?” Eleven looks confused again.

“El,” Max tells her softly. “Love doesn’t work like that.” 

The girl blinks up at her, freckles of light all caught up in her eyes like stars. Then she’s grabbing Max’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and Max feels her idiot brain go all mushy and confused.

“Can you teach me, then?” She asks, whispering now. Her skin is soft and she’s close enough that Max can smell the faint, apple scented shampoo in her hair. She’s leaning in and her voice is wispy but it feels like a knife in Max’s gut.

“ _Can you teach me how love works_?” 

_Jesus Christ._

She wants to tell El that love isn’t all the simple, that’s its not some ten step plan and _she_ doesn’t really understands it all that much, either.

“S-sure thing,” Max says instead, slowly untangling their fingers. Her skin is warm where El‘s has brushed against it.

It’s dark, but she can see the tiny grin on the girl’s face, flashing beneath the light from the screen as she places her hand back into her lap. “Okay.” 

“What now?”

“Easy,” Max scoops a spoonful of melted ice cream into her mouth. “Get rid of Mike.”

El’s eyes go round. “ _Kill_ him?”

” _Dump_ him,” Max laughs. 

The girl seems to consider it for a moment. “Can’t today,” she says simply. “He left town to go see his sick nana.“ 

Max frowns. “ _He_ told you that?”

El nods. “This morning. He hung up before I could say good bye.”

“He’s _totally_ lying,” Max rolls her eyes.

“ _What_?”

Max jumps up off of the bed and switches on the light. El is looking up at her, eyeing her like she’s trying to read her mind. Max wonders if she can do that. 

“El, he was _lying_ to you! He’s not worrying about his _sick Nana_. I bet he and Lucas are trying to beat my high score on Dig Dug over at the Arcade right about now.”

“But he— _friends_ don’t lie,” El is shaking her head. Curls bounce this way and that.

Max scoffs. “Yeah well _boy_ friends lie. _All the time!_ ”

_Sometimes girlfriends, too._

El gasps, leaning forward to stare up at Max, like she just can’t _believe_ that people _lie_. _Jesus_. Music blares from the television, the Goonies kids must’ve found their treasure.

“What do I do now?” El looks lost.

“Well, _obviously,_ _Mike_ thinks you’re stupid. Which you’re not,” Max is pacing now. El watches her, head and eyes following her back and forthbackandfor—

“Not,” El agrees. 

“He thinks he can treat you like _garbage_.”

“ _Garbage_ ,” El repeats, shaking her head.

“We need to give him a taste of his own medicine!” 

“I give him the medicine,” El says slowly, less sure.

Max doesn’t know much about El’s living situation, just knows that Hopper doesn’t let her leave the house all that much or do _anything_ fun, really. She just sits inside all day and waits for Mike to come visit her. _Barf_.

Max wonders how mad Hopper would be if she took El out for a bit. 

_What’s he gonna do? Arrest me?_

_As if._

Max whirls around to face El, yanking her up off the bed. She switches the television off. “You got any money on you?”

”No...but—“ El’s eyes go wide.

”But?” Max prompts hopefully?

“Hop—keeps emergency money in the safe,” El tells her. “Is this an emergency?” 

Max shoves her sneakers back on and motions for Eleven to do the same. ”Oh, definitely. Come on, grab that money and lets go.”

El frowns at her, confused. “Where are we going?”

Max grabs her board and grins. “To have some _real_ fun. There’s more to life than stupid boys, you know.”

El has a _lot_ to learn.

* * *

“Max, what are we doing here?”

The floors are still shiny and the neon signs above the stores glow with a burning intensity. Billy Joel plays over the crackling speakers, just barely audible over the sound of _people_. People _everywhere_ ; crying babies and fake blonde mothers and asshole teenagers.

Starcourt Mall is _tearing_ into local business. It’s big and it’s _loud_ and Max’s step-dad thinks it’s a ploy for Russian infiltration.

Max just thinks it’s neat. Steve gets the Party into free movies and the arcade has twice as many games for her to beat.

“We’re here to find you a new look,” Max pulls her new friend along, past the arcade and the theater and the salon. El drags on her feet like a child, nearly tripping over herself because she’s trying to look at _everything_. All at once. The light from the Jazcercise sign turns her skin rosy pink, reflects in her eyes. El has nice eyes, she thinks. Rich like chocolate. Max has always liked brown eyes, eyes that turn honey-colored in the sun and glow with _warmth_. 

They don’t stop until they’ve reached the fountain in the middle of Starcourt. Neon lights run beneath the water, glowing and changing colors beneath its surface. El watches them for at least a solid minute, Max isn’t sure if she blinks even once— _man_ , she’s weird.

The crowd is the thickest in the center of the mall, people push past them, jostling shopping bags and narrowly missing them with elbows and purses. 

“Too many people here,” El says worriedly. “What if I hurt them?”

Nobody really knows what Eleven is capable of. It’s why she’s not allowed in places like this, places swarming with people and humidity and _stress_.

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” 

Max shrugs. “I trust you.” And she means it.

She doesn’t miss the way El’s hand tightens around her’s for a beat before going limp again. Max drops her hand, sweaty palms and shaking fingers flexing at her side like they never left.

She knows better than to hold hands with a girl for too long. 

“Okay El,” she grins, hopping up to stand on the fountain’s edge. Eleven follows suit. “What should we do first?”

El spins around in a circle, Max has to balance her before she falls off of the fountain’s edge. Her eyes finally settle on Max. “I...don’t know.”

”Well, I guess we’re just gonna have to try everything,” Max meets her gaze, grinning giddily.

Turns out, Eleven likes colorful things. Bright blues and neon yellows and electric pinks. She also apparently has a thing for patters. They leave the Gap with matching grins and two shopping bags full of El’s new look.

They decide to blow off the rest of El’s money on anything they deem interesting. They take about a hundred different pictures at the photo finish studio and Eleven changes into one of her new outfits. A puffy-sleeved, red Hawaiian shirt tucked into a pair of navy blue pants that tie high up on her waist. Max ties her short hair up into a ponytail with a matching red scrunchy and helps her lace up her new Chucks. 

El smiles at her in the mirror, all toothy and bright-eyed. Loose hair tumbles out of her little ponytail, falling into her face in soft curls and cowlicks.

”Do I look okay?” 

And she’s looks,

She looks _cool_.

Its a good look for her. Endearing almost. Not what Max expected. But she thinks El makes it work.

Max grins. “Looks sick, El.” 

Eleven frowns. “Sick?”

”Yeah, sick,” Max fixes her own hair in the mirror, brushing sweaty strands out of her face. “You know, like cool.” She pulls her hair up into a ponytail too, brushing away the stray baby hairs that fall into her face and curl around her ears. “Look, now we match.”

El grins. “ _Sick_ ,” she says.

It’s a good day. 

The two of them decide to get ice cream before they leave. Plus, Eleven says she wants to see Steve in his dorky sailor uniform. 

That’s where Max spots Greta Keene. 

They’re in line at Scoops Ahoy when Max sees her. She’s sitting at a table with a group of girls, and Max _knows_ they’re all looking at her, she just _knows_ it. She hears snickering, and she knows if she listens hard enough she’ll hear _worse_. 

So she doesn’t be listen, she just stares. She stares and Greta stares back, and she wishes she could do cool things with her mind like El can. She’s _itching_ to make that vanilla milkshake burst right in Greta’s stupid face. 

It’s not long before Eleven sees them too. She frowns in Greta’s direction. “Who is that?”

“Greta Keen from gym class,” Max rolls her eyes, pretending to gag. “She just moved here from Maine with her _creepazoid_ dad. She’s such a _puke_.” 

_Greta Keen_ thinks she looks like Madonna when she fluffs her stupid blonde bangs up so they’re a frazzled mess hanging off her forehead. Well, Max thinks she looks like a fucking poodle.

 _Greta Keen_ wrote _dyke_ on the back of Max’s Pys Ed uniform with block Sharpie.

 _Greta Keen_ is an _asshole_. A poodle-faced asshole.

“Ignore her,” El says simply. “She’s just a puke.”

Max snorts. “Yeah,” she says. “Total barf.” 

They burst into laughter, and Max feels almost light on her feet. Maybe like she’s floating, her ratty, old Vans just an inch off the shiny, linoleum tile of Starcourt. 

She thinks an inch is enough, though. 

* * *

“-not going halfsies with you on a three hundred freaking dollar porcelain teddy bear, Mike!”

Max frowns. She knows that voice.

“ _Lucas_ -“

“Can we play D&D now?”

“No!”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be _shitting_ me,” Max nods her head over to the mall’s bike rack, where Mike, Lucas and Will stand in a heap of gangly limbs and short-shorts. Eleven follows her gaze, eyes going as wide as quarters.

“It’s Mike,” she whispers, panicked.

“El, _chillax_. Just- just be cool. You’ve got this,” Max says, taking her by the shoulders.

“I’m cool.”

“Yes, you are,” Max laughs.

“And you have my back?”

“ _Duh_. Now come on,” Max motions for the El to follow her over.

Mike and Lucas don’t notice when she walks up, El hot on her heels. Will sees them, though. He shoots them an awkward quirk of his lips and an equally awkward wave.

“Well isn’t this a nice surprise,” Max says, crossing her arms accusingly. The boys freeze mid-argument before her, knuckles white around the handles of their bikes. Lucas looks caught. Mike looks surprised. Will looks like he wants to go home already.

It feels like one of those western stand-offs almost, Max and El against the boys of the Party. The air is dry outside and the sun beats down on the backs of their necks and she half expects a tumble weed to bramble by like they do in the films. 

”M-Max!” Lucas says through a forced smile. “And El. Hanging out. This is... _new_?”

”Yeah, brand new,” Max says hurriedly. She’s looking at Mike. “How’s your _Nana_?”

But Mike isn’t looking at her, go figure.

“ _What_ are you doing here?”

El shrugs at his question. She takes a slow bite of her cone, making a point to chew and swallow before answering.

“Shopping.”

Max grins. Holy shit. _Cool as a cucumber._

“This is her new style,” Max says smugly. “What do you think?”

Mike’s face is splotchy with anger, freckles going pink against the flushed skin of his cheeks. He turns to Max. “What the hell is wrong with you? You _know_ she can’t be here.”

“You can’t tell her what to do,” Max says with a shrug. “She’s not gonna follow you around like a lost puppy forever, you know. Like, what is she, your little pet or something?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” El says. “Am I your pet?”

“Wha- _no_!” If Mike’s voice was any higher, only dogs would be able to hear it. “I’m just saying-“

“Then why do you treat me like garbage?”

Mike teeters on his feet, sputtering and speechless. _Damn_ , El’s good.

“You _said_ Nana was sick,” she says.

“She _is_ ,” the boy squeaks out. Behind him, Will rolls his eyes. “S-she _is_ ,” he elbows Lucas in the stomach with a pointed look. 

“She is,” Mike says again, accompanied by Lucas’ award winning, “ _Very_ sick,” and vigorous nod. Max scoffs. _Boys_.

“That’s- that’s why we’re here,” Mike’s grasping at straws now, both girls can tell. Max almost feels bad for the guy. “To get Nana a gift.”

“Yeah,” Lucas chimes in.

 _Bull_ shit.

“You lied,” El says. “And _friends don’t lie_.“ 

Mike goes silent at that, eyes going soft and clouded. He’s looking at the ground, fingers fidgeting at his sides. Max knows that fidget, knows that nervousness and the thick, suffocating feeling in her chest, like wet cotton balls. She wonders what Mike Wheeler hiding, why he won’t say it out loud to his closest friends. 

Eleven doesn’t look angry. She doesn’t look sad or hurt.

She just looks a little disappointed. ”In that case,” she says.

“I dump your ass.”

Holy shit. 

The silence that comes after is heavy; heavy like the heat in the air and the pressure in your ears right before they pop. They’re bus arrives, but nobody moves for a solid thirty seconds. 

_Holy shit_ , Will mouths to El from behind Mike and Lucas, eyes wide. _Call me later._

El nods. 

Max rolls her eyes. “Come on, El,” she says, making a face at Lucas. “It smells like _lame_ out here.”

Later that night, Max sits in her room, running her fingers along the smooth surface of a piece of paper. It’s a photo strip from one of those little picture booths at the mall- the kind that prints out right away. It’s smooth to the touch, glossy beneath her fingers and warm because it had been in her pocket all day. 

It’s nothing like the pictures they took at the photo finish place, dramatic and full of special editing and effects. Just a four paneled strip of paper, tiny photos of El and her caught mid laugh or making silly faces at the camera. Max smiles. 

She really does love to hole up at the Arcade with Dustin and a month’s worth of saved up quarters or throw rocks at shit in the junkyard with Lucas, she _does_.

But it’s kinda nice to have a friend that’s a girl for a change.

Max tacks the photo up on the wall next the _Nightmare on Elm Street_ poster above her bed.

That’s when her doorbell rings. 

For a moment, Max thinks it’s Lucas at the door coming to apologize or something. She peaks through her blinds and a tall, gangly figure is stood on her doorstep, shrouded in darkness because Max’s step-dad hates to leave the porch light on. It’s only when she really squints, that Max recognizes the dorky bowl cut.

Will Byers is standing on her porch. 

_Huh_. 

Max races down the hall before he can ring the doorbell again. She pulls open the door as quietly as she can, peering at Will’s pale face turned ghostly from the moonlight. The light from inside her house casts a stark yellow line down the side of his face, turning a tiny part of his skin golden hued and honey colored in contrast.

“H-hey.” His voice is quiet, just barely audible over the chorus of cricket chirps and the shuffling of his sneakers on the ground.

“Hey,” she parrots, curling and uncurling her fingers around the old wooden door frame. The air outside is nice for once- most days in Hawkins feel like slow suffocation, like someone covered the entire town in a thick, wool blanket. Hawkins is molasses during the summer, slow and muted and _sticky_. But right now it’s cool to the touch, hidden away from the sweltering sun. The moon brings summer breeze, rustling through trees and hitting Max’s feverish skin like a fresh breath of air. Crickets chirp and wind chimes startle into song and it’s _nice_. 

And Will Byers is standing on her porch. 

“I—I need your help with something,” he says, not meeting her gaze. His hands are curled into fists at his sides. 

Max frowns. Because even though they hang out together in the same group of friends every day, it suddenly strikes her how little she really _knows_ about Will Byers. She knows what she’s seen, shaking fingers and black veins and the monster that writhed beneath his skin last fall. She knows he likes to draw and play D&D and she knows what people say about him. She knows that they’ve never talked outside of occasional pleasantries and greetings, and she isn’t really sure why.

”What kind of help?” Max asks him, because she isn’t really sure what kind of help she can give _Will Byers_ at 8 pm on a Monday night. 

Will looks nervous. No, scratch that. Will looks like he’s about to barf up his supper right on Max’s porch. “Can I…can I come in,” he asks weakly, his thin face gleaming with sweat. Max glances over her shoulder at the hallway, biting her lip. Her parents aren’t home, but Billy is, and she can hear the rock music blaring from behind his shut door; see the cigarette smoke wafting through the cracks in the doorframe. She lets her eyes wander back to Will and the stripe of light on his skin. 

Will is putty-soft, all wide eyes and knobby knees. Like a baby deer. Billy will kill him dead.

“Not today,” Max says, and she thinks Will gets it just then, smells the smoke and hears the music, because he nods.

“Tomorrow.” Max shivers against the breeze. “Come by tomorrow, okay? We can talk then. I want to help you, Will Byers.” 

She doesn’t wait for Will to reply before closing the door.


	3. The Boy With the Thorn in His Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysteriously showing up on each other’s porches at dusk belongs to the Gays

Will Byers doesn’t turn up on Max’s porch the next day. 

Max waits around for him anyways. It’s not like she has other shit to do on a Tuesday afternoon, anyhow.

She watches about an eternity’s worth of _Gilligan’s Island_ reruns in her empty living room (if her mind drifts from Gilligan and his shenanigans to thoughts of frizzy hair and sweet-smelling chapstick and lopsided grins for a beat too long, she doesn’t acknowledge it) and lets her fingers go soft and burnt around a smoke or two before the telephone on the coffee table starts to ring. She yanks the receiver off the hook and holds it to her ear.

”Hargrove residence, this is Max speaking,” she says, eyes still glued to the screen.

“ _I need help getting over someone_.”

Max pauses, exhaling the rest of her drag against the receiver before waving it away. She recognizes Will’s voice on the line, rushed and nervous and _quiet_ , like he’s telling her secret. She frowns a little, twisting the phone chord around her finger until it’s pulled taunt. The couch cushions shift beneath her when she leans into them. 

“Hey, what _gives_ , Byers?” She frowns like he can see her face. “I haven’t left the house all day ‘cause I was waiting for you to show up! I’m a busy woman, you know.”

She digs around in her couch cushions for quarters as she says it, and finds a mood ring instead, slipping it on her finger and admiring the only slightly chipped gem in the lamplight. 

_Definitely_ not a busy woman.

”I’m sorry,” the boy on the line says around a tired sigh. “I meant to come over, but then—well, I didn’t.” 

Max thinks about the way Will looked the night before, with his wide eyes and his pale face.

He looked like a ghost, she remembers. Like her hand would’ve gone right through him, had she reached out.

She wonders _who_ made Will Byers’ skin go pale enough to make him look so haunting. What they did to make him want to forget about them.

”It’s fine,” Max tells him, because she can hear his voice shaking. She shifts the phone to the other ear—it’s warm beneath her fingers, buzzing with static. “Least you’re calling now, right?”

A relieved sigh. ”Right.”

”So,” Max flicks ashes off the end of her cigarette and watches them fall on to the couch. “Who is it?” She’s trying not to sound nosy, even though that’s exactly what she is.

Will doesn’t say anything, and Max taps her fingers against the phone, the sound of her newly-discovered mood ring against the warm plastic ticks softly into the line. She wonders, for a moment, if it’s Eleven he likes. It makes sense, she thinks. He _had_ seemed excited when El dumped Mike the day before. And El is... _El_. Who _wouldn’t_ like her? Max lets the phone chord around her finger uncoil, hoping that the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach will do the same.

Will sighs, and it sounds like static. 

“I can’t say,” he says, with his wobbly voice. “I just—“

Max waits for him to speak. Her cigarette burns to ashes between her band-aid covered fingers. Damn. Waste of a good smoke.

“ _I just want to move on,_ ” he finally says, desperate.

She thinks about yesterday, about the photo strip on her wall and the plastic stars on El’s ceiling and the worry all choked up in Will Byers’ throat. 

Crushes really _are_ the worst.

“Okay,” Max decides, pulling one last drag out of her cigarette stub before putting it out on the coffee table. “Tell your mom that you’re staying over at Mike’s place tonight.” 

”Wha— _why_?”

”Don’t question me, Byers. I’m a _genius_ ,” Max assures the boy, only _half_ joking.

“I’ll _be at your place_ in ten,” she tells him pointedly, hanging up the telephone before the boy can protest.

The TV is still on and long-forgotten by the time Max gets around to leaving her house, backpack heavy on her shoulders and her board tucked under her arm. The sound of the Kit-Kat jingle goes muffled and faded when she slams the front door behind her and doesn’t look back. 

* * *

It’s nearly dusk when Max reaches Will’s side of town, and a bleary haze settles over Hawkins like the way a dream feels. It’s going to storm, Max thinks, squinting up at the muddled sky above as her board carries her down Cornwallis street. Clouds cover the sunset—the gloomy kind of clouds, that hang from the heavens and turn the whole town gray and muted and soft around the edges in their wake—and soon enough, it starts to sprinkle. Max tilts her head up towards the sky, lets drops of warm, sunset hued rain ghost her skin like kisses. The clouds above only get gloomier, and Max can almost _feel_ the storm coming. It’s a thrumming electricity that she feels in the tips of her fingers and the smell of damp earth that only gets stronger when she turns onto Will Byers’ street, when the soft kisses from the rain start to become bruising and heavy on her skin, soaking her shoulders and slicking up the roads beneath her skateboard.

It’s a lot different than Old Cherry road, Max thinks, blinking rain out of her eyes. Cherry street, where the lawns are yellowing and the houses are cramped so close that they’re practically on top of one another. Tucked off somewhere in the outskirts like even the town itself is ashamed of it. Max isn’t, though—ashamed of it, she means. The streets are good for skating and Ms. Carmichael next door lets Max come over to see all her cats sometimes. It’s not _totally_ lame, once you get used to it.

Will’s street, on the other hand, is made up of mostly trees and dirt paths. It follows the edge of the woods, and Max knows if she ventures deep enough into them, she’ll stumble across Castle Byers. She can see Will’s place at the very end of the street, an image right out of her memories. She remembers the sagging roof and the chips in the paint. The plaster covered hole in the wall to the left of the heavy, wooden door. She remembers the crunch of gravel beneath her sneakers, and then the weight of Billy’s car keys in her hand. She hadn’t been to Will’s house since that night six months ago, but it looked the same as ever now. Max can see warm yellow light spilling through the cracks in the blinds as she gets closer and closer. An old bird feeder hangs from the roof just outside the front door, slowly but surely filling up with rainwater. A bicycle lies on its side in the gravel driveway, one of its wheels spins lazily in the wind.

She trudges up the front steps and knocks on the door.

Will looks surprised to see her when he opens his door, eyes going wide at the sight of her standing on the fading _wipe your paws_ welcome mat, like he’s wondering how she even knows where he lives. He looks almost ghostly again, despite the warm light spilling out through the doorway. His sweater is wrinkled and his socks don’t match. 

“You gonna tell me why you’re here now?” He asks, casting her a dry look. 

Max squints up at him through the rain. It’s pouring now, hard enough to soak her hair and stream down her freckled face like freshly fallen tears. Thunder booms and wind howls, and the rickety old porch shakes and groans beneath her soggy sneakers. Will glances warily up at the sky.

“Yeah,” Max exhales, pulling her thin windbreaker tighter around her. “Come on. We’re going out.”

Will doesn’t move. He looks tired and he looks guilty, like he’d been up all night worrying about something. Max thinks she knows the feeling. 

“Where are we going?”

”You’ll see.”

”It’s raining.”

She shrugs. “A little water never hurt anybody.”

”What about people who drown?”

”Don’t be a smartass, Byers. You coming or what?”

The boy seems to think it over for a minute, shifting from foot to foot in his mismatched socks. The inside of his house is quiet despite the gusts of wind that threaten to knock it clean off of it’s foundation. Will’s house is a beacon, she thinks. A safe haven when there’s monsters lurking. It’s warmth and yellow light and the stutter of a radio switching from static to music somewhere inside. _The eye of the storm_ , Max thinks, meeting Will’s gaze. It’s steady, despite the way he seems to hunch into himself like he wants to disappear. Brown but maybe a little green, too. 

“Gimme a second,” he finally says, and Max is left standing in the dark as he disappears into the eye of the storm. 

He returns wearing sneakers and the dorkiest raincoat Max has ever seen—bright yellow and done up to the very last button. _Jesus_ , she can hear the crumpling plastic from a mile away. 

“What?” He asks, when he sees her staring. 

Max bites down on a laugh. “Nothing. Nice jacket.”

Will gives her a dirty look and she snorts. 

Then thunder booms and they both flinch a little closer to each other, huddled on Will’s cramped up porch—the sound of rain pattering against his rain coat fills her ears, and she feels herself relax.

“We’d better get going,” she clears her throat, wondering if all this is worth getting struck by lightning on a Tuesday afternoon. Will nods shakily. He follows her down to the driveway, where his bike lay on its side.

Max yanks his bike up off the ground and manages to balance her skateboard on its slippery handlebars before throwing her leg over the side of it. She pats the empty space behind her, looking over at Will expectantly.

“Why do you get to be in front?” He asks. “It’s my bike.”

”’Cause I’m the zoomer,” she tells him, and he shrugs and scrambles on after her, the plastic from his jacket crumpling loudly over the rain. Max rolls her eyes.

She kicks up off the ground and pedals down the rest of the block, only teetering for a second before gaining her balance. Will’s knobby knees knock against her shins awkwardly, and Max tries to remember when he got so damn tall. The thunder gets louder when they hit the pavement, and she pedals faster, blinking rain out of her eyes and trying not to notice that Will is shaking against her. They pass through the empty Main Street, past ramshackle businesses and half-empty buildings that seem to sag under the weight of the storm. She wonders if anybody can see them through fogged up shop windows—two kids hunched over on a wobbly bicycle with nothing but the dim glow of the light on its handlebars to guide them through the gloom. Yellow jacket, red hair. 

Two kids with skin as cold as ice and clothes soaked from rain.

Two kids going nowhere fast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really short and I haven’t updated in like 2 months but hi again!! Uhh if u liked this pls validate me in the comments ahaha

**Author's Note:**

> Comment are appreciated:)


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